Electric display device providing emphasis and retrieval of designated information

ABSTRACT

An electric device, such as an electronic book, retrieves information from a memory and displays the information. A matrix array of sensors associated with the display can be actuated by a user to designate particular portions of a displayed page. In response to the designations, flags are stored identifying the designated portions, and the appearance of the portions on the display is modified to visually highlight the portions. The page including the designation information can be immediately retrieved and displayed at a later time in response to a user instruction.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This is a Divisional application of Ser. No. 07/961,021, filed Oct. 14,1992, which itself was a continuation of Ser. No. 07/702,122, filed May16, 1991 (now abandoned); which was a continuation of Ser. No.07/205,750, filed Jun. 13, 1988 (now abandoned); which was acontinuation-in-part of and Ser. No. 07/292,098, filed Dec. 30, 1988(now abandoned); which was a continuation-in-part of Ser. No.07/070,589, filed Jul. 7, 1987 (now abandoned).

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a paperless book, and more particularlyrelates to a paperless book which is in readily transportable and iscompact and convenient for assembly in book collection such as in thehome, schools and colleges, and in libraries.

A vast quantity of printed matter is widely distributed in the form ofbooks. Such printed books comprise at least several tens of paper sheetsand often several hundreds of paper sheets, and therefore the weight ofthe book can be quite substantial. Especially in the case of novels andbooks for professional use, the weight of a copy may exceed 1 Kg.Because of this, books are generally transported by trucks to book shopsand other retailers, which increases their cost due to the hightransportation cost. Furthermore, the books are often somewhat large insize so that a large amount of space has to be provided for storingbooks.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a paperless bookwhich is in a form that is convenient for transportation.

It is another object of the invention to provide a paperless book whichrequires only a small amount of space for its storage.

In order to accomplish the above objects, the invention proposes that anelectronic display and an electronic memory are used in place of printedpaper to provide a handy device for reading written material.

More particularly, the information consisting of characters such asletters, symbols and the like, is converted into digital form. Namely,the information in the form of printed words of a book is converted intoa suitably encoded digital form on a memory such as a magnetic floppydisc, an optical disc or other convenient storage device. The paperlessbook according to the invention is comprised of a reproducing device foruse with such a memory and, a suitable display. The reader views thedisplay in place of reading the printed paper of a conventional book.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention which is describedhereinafter there is thus provided a portable paperless book comprising,in an integrated unit generally in the shape of a book, a reader for amagnetic floppy disc, optical disc, or other interchangeable compactdigital storage medium, a processor, an input facility operable to causesaid processor to process information retrieved from the digital storagemedium, display means for displaying such information, and a solar cellfor powering the unit, the unit comprising a body portion and a coverportion hingedly connected thereto with the display means being providedin the cover portion.

By virtue of the invention, a collection, of conventional books can bereplaced by one reproducing device as abovementioned and a collection offloppy disc or other compact memories each weighing, for example, only10 g to 30 g. Furthermore, only the light weight memories need betransported to book retailers.

The invention becomes more advantageous if the reproducing devices areunified in the reproducing system or at least in a particular group. Forexample, if one reproducing device is provided for each student in aschool, the students do not have to bring their heavy books to schooland instead they need only carry the light weight memories.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an examplary paperless book inaccordance with the invention.

FIG. 2 is a side elevation view showing the paperless book of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the paperless book of FIG. 1 and FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a cross sectional view showing a liquid crystal device used inaccordance with the invention.

FIG. 5 is a frontal view of the display of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 6 is a cross sectional view showing a liquid crystal device similarto that of FIG. 4.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring now to FIGS. 1, 2 and 3, a portable paperless book inaccordance with the present invention is illustrated. The book comprisesa reproducing device 1 having a display 2, keybuttons or other externalinput facilities 3, and on/off switch 4 operated by opening and closinga hinged lid 6 of the device. A solar cell module 5 for auxiliary energysupply is provided on the lid 6, a data file processor 7, an inputterminal 8 for connection of an external electricity supply to the disc,and terminals 9 an 10 for inputting data from an external device arealso provided.

In the illustrated embodiment, the display 2 is a liquid crystal displayand the data file processor is a disc drive adapted for use with opticaldiscs on which stored information is stored in terms of variation in thereflectance of the disc to incident light. A magnetic floppy disc andassociated magnetic read heads can be employed in place of the opticaldisc and its associated reader. Liquid crystal displays are preferred inthat they do not over stimulate the eyes, but other display formats canbe used. The solar cell 6 is an amorphous silicon semiconductor solarcell of 200 mm length and 300 mm width.

The amorphous silicon solar cell consists of a plurality (e.g., 25) ofphotoelectric conversion devices connected to each other in series, eachconversion device comprising a transparent substrate (such as a glass orplastic plate, or the like), a transparent conductive film such asindium tin oxide, SnO₂, ZnO or multiple layers thereof formed on thesubstrate and constituting a first electrode of the cell, amulti-layered amorphous silicon semiconductor incorporating a PINjunction therein formed by a known CVD process, and a second transparentconductive film formed over the semiconductor. The conversion devicesare manufactured by using laser processing techniques scribing thelayers deposited on the 200 mm×300 mm substrate. By virtue of thetransparency of the substrate and the underlying and overlyingelectrodes, the solar cell can receive sunlight from both sides of thelid so that power generation can continue regardless of whatever the lidis opened or closed.

The paperless book according to the invention is further provided with aprocessing unit 11 shown schematically in FIG. 3 and comprising amicrocomputer and a memory. By means of this unit, informationreproduced by the data file processor 7 may be transmitted to thedisplay 6 in accordance with commands entered by use of the inputfacilities 3, so that a user can, as he desires, read from the displayscreen 2 just as he would read a conventional book. On the display 2, 50lines of text each accommodating 30 chanese characters (60 Englishletters) can be displayed and the text displayed on the screen can bechanged easily by operating the input facility 3.

For a modification of the above described embodiment a plurality of datapages may be reproduced at a time by the data file processor 7 andtemporarily stored in the user memory provided in the unit 11. By thismeans a reader user can repeatedly call arbitrarily selected pages oftext for display on the screen without delay just as he can duringreading of a printed reference.

Furthermore, a matrix array of pressure sensors or photo sensors can beformed on the display so that, by use of touch or of light pen, a usercan designate particular portions of the displayed information and storecorresponding flags in the user memory in the unit 1, for example, inorder to cause important portions of the displayed text to beemphasized, by underlining or inverted letters.

The display which is utilized is of the nonvolatile liquid crystal typeas illustrated in a copending application filed Jun. 10, 1988 entitled"Method of Manufacturing Liquid Crystal Device" and assigned to theassignee of the instant application, which is hereby incorporated hereinby reference. As shown in FIG. 4, the display includes a 300 A thickmolibdenum film 19 which is formed as a first electrode for liquidcrystal display on a glass substrate 12. Amorphous silicon semiconductorfilms of the P-type, I-type and N-type are stacked in order to form apin diode 22 (non-linear element) on the first electrode 19 by a knownCVD method. Further, a second electrode 20 is formed from a 2000 A thickmolibdenum film on the amorphous semiconductor films. An insulatinglayer 18 is disposed between pin diodes 23 in order to make its uppersurface flush with the upper surface of the diodes 23.

An opposite transparent electrode arrangement 13 is formed on a glasssubstrate and covered by an alignment control film 14. This oppositesubstrate and the above described substrate carrying the diodes 23 aremated with a sealing adhesive 16 on the peripheral edge as shown in FIG.4. The electrode arrangement 13 is associated with the pixel electrodes21 to address particular pixels. A ferroelectric liquid crystal material15 is disposed between the substrates 12. When an electric field isapplied to the liquid crystal by means of the opposing electrodes 13 and21, the molecules of the liquid crystal are directed along one of thetwo directions in accordance with the direction of the applied electricfield. With this construction, the anisotropicla characteristic of thedevice can be controlled by switching the direction of the voltageapplied to the electrodes 13 and 21. On both sides of the device arepolarizing plates 24 and 17. The plate 24 is aligned to have itspolarization direction along one of the alignment direction of theliquid crystal and the plate 17 to have its polarization directionperpendicular to the polarization direction of the plate 24. Lightpassing through the device and the plates is modulated in accordancewith the anisotropy of the liquid crystal.

The liquid crystal display is constructed to provide controls 30 on thedisplay 2, as shown in FIG. 5. When the main switch is turned on, thecontrols 30 can be operated by a light pen. When a page is displayed,the controls will disappear in order to provide the full area for thedisplay. The book can be driven by the controls except for mainskitching.

FIG. 6 shows a display for utilizing the controls. The structure is thesame as that illustrated in FIG. 4 with the exception that thesemiconductor layer 22' is formed with a NIN junction and the underlyingelectrode arrangement includes a pair of electrode strips 19a and 19bfor each pixel. The electrode strips extend in the directionperpendicular to the upper electrode arrangement 13 which extendslaterally. A photo-sensitive device is formed with the strip 19a and thesemiconductor layer 22' and a non-linear device is formed with the otherstrip 19b and the semiconductor layer 22'.

By virtue of the properties of the ferroelectric liquid crystals, thedisplay can hold any page without energy consumption when the userdesires to leave the display showing a particular page. The electricityrequired to drive the liquid crystal device is such that a solar cellcan supply the necessary power for the book.

While the present invention has been described in conjunction with aparticular embodiment, it is to be appreciated that the invention is notlimited to the described embodiment and that may modifications andvariations are possible without departure from the scope of theinvention as set forth in the appended claims. For example, thereproducing device of the described paperless book could if desired beprovided with a battery for storage of electricity generated by thesolar cell. It is further to be appreciated that whilst the paperlessbook of the invention has been described herein as a replacement fornovels and other conventional books having pages of printed text, thebook could be adapted to be used as an electronic diary with thefacilities 3 enabling the user to make his own entries onto blank"pages" of the book. Yet further, as a memory device, magnetic tapes,EPROMs or any other memory can be employed for this invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. An electric device comprising:a reproducingdevice for reading information from a first memory; a display means forvisualizing said information; a temporary memory for temporarily storingdata supplied thereto from said first memory where the amount of datawhich can be stored in the temporary memory is greater than the amountof data which can be displayed by said display means; a matrix array ofsensors associated with said display means which can be actuated by auser to designate particular portions of a displayed page; emphasizingmeans connected to said temporary memory and said display means forreceiving said user designations, for storing flags identifying thedesignated portions, and for modifying the appearance of said portionsto visually highlight said portions during display on the display means;and reference retrieving means connected to the display means forreceiving a user instruction to recall a selected page of textcontaining said designated portion and for causing immediate retrievaland display on the display means of the previously designatedinformation.
 2. The electric device of claim 1 wherein said first memoryis an optical disc.
 3. The electric device of claim 1 further comprisinga solar cell.
 4. The electric device of claim 1 further comprising a lidprovided with a solar cell.
 5. An electric device comprising:a readingmeans for reading information from a first memory; a liquid crystaldisplay means for visualizing said information; a temporary memory fortemporarily storing data supplied thereto from said reading means wherethe amount of data which can be stored in the temporary memory isgreater than the amount of data which can be displayed by said displaymeans; a matrix array of sensors associated with said display meanswhich can be actuated by a user to designate particular portions of adisplayed page; emphasizing means connected to said temporary memory andsaid display means for receiving said user designations, for storingflags identifying the designated portions, and for modifying theappearance of said portions to visually highlight said portions duringdisplay on the display means; and reference retrieving means connectedto the display means for receiving a user instruction to recall aselected page of text containing said designated portion and for causingimmediate retrieval and display on the display means of the previouslydesignated information.
 6. The electric device of claim 5 furthercomprising a solar cell.
 7. The electric device of claim 5 furthercomprising a lid provided with a solar cell.
 8. The electric device ofclaim 5 wherein said reading means includes a terminal through whichsaid information is supplied from an external memory.